No, DON'T forget about in-person transactions.

The mistake many businesses make when starting to accept Bitcoin is that they expect an increase in turnover quickly. I have seen merchants jump off after 8 weeks because they only got a few extra customers in that time and thought it therefore wasn't worth the effort. But it doesn't work that way.

It does take time but after accepting Bitcoin since sometime in 2011 in our restaurant in Berlin (ROOM77) we can absolutely and definately say that not only has it brought us a lot of media attention but it is actually driving business to our place.

I don't only mean the monthly Berliner Bitcoin-meetups held at our place (we give out too many Pamperos on these evenings to make money on them anyhow ). We get reservations from all over the world from people comming to Berlin who know exactly where they want to go for dinner without consulting any restaurant guide and even dragging their local friends to ROOM77 because they want to pay in Bitcoin. I know for a fact that no other bar/restaurant in Berlin of our size and profile is getting that kind of business and this is increasing steadily.

So accepting Bitcoin DOES drive customers to your brick'n'mortar business and if you offer a positive customer-experience you can even turn their non-Bitcoiner friends into regular customers and very often into new Bitcoin-users as well .


That is not true either. Anyone comming from out of the Euro-zone to Berlin has clear advantages when paying in Bitcoin over having his credit card charged in a foreign currency or changing cash at Western Union. Just do the math.

Joe

This is like complaining about the crappy gas mileage you get on the drive to the car dealership to trade in your gas guzzler for a Prius (and, based on the exchange method she chose, picking a dealership that's about 3,000 miles out of the way). And then concluding with: "For a car that claims it should reduce the money you spend on gas, the Prius ... doesn't." For God's sake, she just spent $7 to send a $20 Moneygram! That experience should have driven home why Bitcoin is so revolutionary. But instead it somehow means that Bitcoin isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's actually kind of surreal.  It's like most people are too close to the legacy monetary system to even see it. 


The only thing that's "absurd" about the Silk Road is the drug war that made it necessary. Using state violence in a largely-futile effort to control what adults choose to put into their own bodies and consciousness - THAT'S absurd.  A website that enables people to engage in voluntary exchange without becoming victims of that violence - that's beautiful.   

Looking to purchase around 10 BTC - anyone selling?

Ahhh, the way I see it Couchsurfing and bitcoin go very well together - at least in the sense of the general open ethos of both things, I would of thought people that were open to the idea of opening there home to strangers would also be into the idea of bitcoin, nothing about exchanging one for the other!.

I was just as awed by the ideas Couchsurfing as I was by bitcoin (ok, maybe more so with bitcoin.... but still).

I've been considering traveling lately, and have just put the idea of bitcoin and travel together in my head (whilst trying to come up with a blog concept), I may well end up backpacking the world with bitcoins one day

yes... one could argue maybe that he wants his money back for a failed dl. I'm not saying this should be implemented, but it could be argued. Better check stats on search sites before downloading.

Yeah, I'm crawling too.  Like downloading @ 0.68 KB/s  Something wrong?

What do you mean what is that? You just asked for an alternate domain.

Use http://bitlucky.com-site.biz/

this is hilarious but for some reason i still think some stupid people will invest... 

more love for logarithms please!

Erik made sure we got placed next to Paypal